oneworld membership gains carriers a cool $900 million

oneworld carriers were $900 million better off last year by being part of the global alliance than they would otherwise have been, according to figures released by the alliance as IATA’s AGM started.Revenues from oneworld alliance fares and sales activities rose by 20% to almost $650 million, while its cost saving efforts from joint purchasing reached over $250 million, said oneworld managing partner John McCulloch.

However, McCulloch concedes that this is just a start. “The potential looks enormous and is enormous and we are just beginning to see it,” he says.

The alliance is now investing again in establishing revenue generating projects after its entire mandate was questioned following the terror attacks of September 2001. “There was never any consideration to shut it down,” says McCulloch of the global grouping, but members insisted the alliance “should stop spending money”.

More work will be put into the area of cost savings, however, “to be frank working in this area is much more difficult [compared to revenue generating schemes],” says McCulloch. However the alliance is making “big inroads” in the area of engineering and maintenance, he says.